'You're Fat' Comment To Diane Smith Sparks Friendship, Book

Former Anchor And Mika Brzezinski Write Book About Food Addiction

In the 1980s, a Massachusetts college student named Mika Brzezinski made regular late-night grocery store trips so she could binge on junk food, which she'd follow with days of fasting and running.

At about the same time, in Connecticut, then-WTNH TV reporter/anchor Diane Smith was doing the same. Following her 11 p.m. newscast, she'd stop at an all-night convenience store for a bad-food fix. The pounds piled on, and ineffective, short-lived diets continued as well.

Now, 25 years later, the pair — who are now best friends, one obsessed with staying skinny and the other struggling with out-of-control weight gain — have written a book about food addiction, the weight crisis in America, their own struggles and how two words changed the depth of their relationship.

"Obsessed: America's Food Addiction, And My Own" is written by Brzezinski, author and co-host of the MSNBC show "Morning Joe" along with Smith, an Emmy award winning Connecticut radio and TV personality and senior producer for programming at CT-N, the Connecticut Network.

"You're fat" are the words that started it all.

"That's what she said to me," Smith recalled of that "punch in the face" conversation on Smith's boat in 2011, when the two families shared a summer outing at the Connecticut shore.

"I cried," said Smith who weighed 256 pounds then. "I wasn't mad because I know Mika so well, but all I could think was 'No one had ever said this to me before.'"

Then the story took an unexpected twist.

As the two later continued a more serious discussion about Smith's obesity and how to tackle it, Brzezinski's own issues surfaced, including her obsession with being thin and using exercise and under-eating to accomplish her look.

"I was complaining to Mika that she was a size 2, skinny and beautiful," the then plus-size Smith recalled during a recent interview over tea and fresh fruit in Brzezinski's Bronxville, N.Y., 1920s-era colonial.

"All of a sudden I look at her and her eyes are filling up with tears, and Mika is not a crying person. And she looks at me and says, 'You really don't know, do you. You and I have a similar story. It's just that yours shows and my doesn't.'"

The conversation became the impetus for the book project and their agreement — for Smith to lose 75 pounds and for Brzezinski to put on 10 by the time the book is published Tuesday. Smith will appear on "Morning Joe" with Brzezinski on Monday morning at 7:30 a.m., as they own up to their struggles publicly.

For Brzezinski, the published confession includes detailed accounts of her "daily tyranny of food cravings," all-night eating sessions, diet pills, 10-mile runs and, once, eating a jar of Nutella with her bare hands.

For Smith, the explicit tales include years of unsuccessful dieting that began when she was a teenager, diet pills, "sneaking snacks" and considering gastric bypass surgery.

"As far as the book, I told Diane it would have to be honest and raw and we tell it like it is," said Brzezinski, the mother of two who is married to investigative reporter Jim Hoffer.

Besides her own story and Smith's, Brzezinski tapped other celebrities, including the late author Nora Ephron, TV personality Gayle King, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and singer/actress Jennifer Hudson, who each share their own food battles for the book. A slew of experts also weigh in on health and food-related topics, including obesity, educating children about healthy eating, and mixed cultural messages about being thin. Also included are the professionals who worked closely with Smith and Brzezinski to confront and correct their issues.

"The process did address the mental as well as the physical for both of us," said Smith, who is married. "I think Mika started this as a way to take care of me, thinking her problems were in the past. She looks fabulous, is on the top of her game professionally. I think she thought, 'This is for Diane.'"

But while Brzezinski was forcing her girlfriend to acknowledge her obesity, Smith handed it back to her friend when the time came.

"I told her, 'you really can't eat' and when you do, you don't take any pleasure out of it and that makes me sad,'" Smith said, recounting serious conversations between the two. "I told her, 'you still have issues to work out.' And I told her writing the book and sharing could help her and others."

"This is not just about two girlfriends working on something but rather about relationships with food," Brzezinski said. "That's why the book is injected with a lot of science about food and eating."

But it's more than another book about complex relationships with food, said Brzezinski who has also written New York Times bestsellers "All Things At Once" and "Knowing Your Value."